Lion and Mouse

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Famed Michigan based sculptor Marshall Fredericks originally designed 'The Lion and Mouse' in 1957. It was commisioned by the J. L. Hudson department store for installation at Eastland Shopping Center in Harper Woods, Michigan. Hudson also commissioned an earlier Frederick's sculpture ('Boy and Bear') at Northland Shopping Center in 1954. As far as I know, both of these sculptures still exist in those malls. Though, I've read that the little mouse has been stolen a few times from the sculpture at Eastland.

The version of 'The Lion and Mouse' that is depicted here was constructed in 1988 and sits outside the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University. A plaster version of the sculpture is also on display inside the museum.

According to an article on Wikipedia, "Fredericks said this sculpture illustrates Aesop's Fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a lion caught a mouse. As the lion was about to eat him, the mouse pleaded for mercy, promising to help the lion one day. The lion was so amused by the prospect of a tiny mouse helping the king of the jungle that he freed the mouse. Some time later, the mouse came across the lion trapped in a hunter's net and gnawed through the ropes to free him. In a different version of the story, the mouse extracted from the lion's paw a troublesome thorn too tiny for the massive lion's claws to grasp. A fitting moral to the story is that kindness is seldom thrown away, be it given to the mightiest or lowliest of creatures. Fredericks captured the story in a single image by contrasting the tiny mouse with the much larger lion."